PEPFAR and USAID, in collaboration with UNICEF, supported AIDSTAR-One in conducting a mapping activity to identify HIV policies and services for adolescents in Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. This technical report summarizes AIDSTAR-One’s findings and is a resource for program planners and policymakers working to improve services and policies for HIV prevention, care, and treatment among adolescents and ALHIV in sub-Saharan Africa.

This report aims to document and capture some of the experiences of adolescents living with HIV as they disclose their HIV status, deal with life-long antiretroviral treatment (ART), move from pediatric to adult health care services, navigate sexuality and relationships and build their independent lives. It also seeks to offer insights into some of the unique issues adolescents living with HIV face, such as pervasive stigma and discrimination.

Stocktaking reports on children and AIDS are the flagship publications of the Unite for Children, Unite against AIDS campaign. The Sixth Stocktaking Report is informed by new data on the HIV epidemic. These data include information on the trends and current status of HIV and AIDS among children and adolescents. They also include new modelling work to evaluate how different HIV-related interventions among children and adolescents can help slow and reverse the epidemic, including the cost of service delivery.

In 2012, AIDSTAR-One created the Toolkit for Transition of Care and Other Services for Adolescents Living with HIV to provide tools and guidance to health care providers and community care providers as well as to the adolescents and their families and caregivers. To test the usefulness of this toolkit and to gather information on how to adapt it to increase its utility, a pilot program was carried out from October 2012 through April 2013 at four health facilities in Kenya.

Positive Connections: Leading Information and Support Groups for Adolescents Living with HIV is a unique guide that provides facilitators with background information about the needs of ALHIV, tips for starting an adult-led information and support group, and 14 sessions to follow in a group setting. The goal of the guide is to help ALHIV:

Understand their HIV diagnosis and participate in the management of their care and treatment.

Learn that many young people live healthy and productive lives while living with HIV.

Stigmatizing attitudes towards people living with HIV are common among young people. Yet there are few opportunities for youth to be exposed to interventions that address the key drivers of stigma and discrimination, namely lack of awareness of stigma and its harmful consequences, social judgment and fear of infection through casual contact. This project demonstrated that higher education can be an effective entry point for stigma reduction, by working with several groups and environments, in this case the faculty, students and college.

The sub-Saharan Africa edition of Teen Talk, a question and answer guide for HIV-positive adolescents, was adapted from the Botswana version, published in 2010 by the Botswana-Baylor Children's Clinical Centre of Excellence Teen Club Program, and the original version, which was published in the United States in 2004.

With increased access to HIV treatment throughout Africa, a generation of HIV positive children is now transitioning to adulthood while living with a chronic condition requiring lifelong medication, which can amplify the anxieties of adolescence. This qualitative study explored how adolescents in Tanzania with HIV experience their nascent sexuality, as part of an evaluation of a home-based care program.

To support India's National AIDS Control Programme (NACP), ICRW and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have adapted an existing global HIV stigma reduction framework for the Indian context and pilot tested the framework in five settings in India. This report synthesizes the lessons learned from the process, including the feasibility and relevance of the framework for use by the NACP and other global stakeholders in informing stigma reduction interventions and measurement.

The Botswana edition of Teen Talk, a question and answer guide for HIV-positive adolescents, was adapted from the original version published in the United States by Weiner and Wood in 2004. Teen Talk covers a variety of topics including ARVs, adherence, friendship, nutrition, exercise, reproductive health, positive prevention, multiple concurrent partnerships, safe male circumcision, prevention of mother to child transmission, emotions and disclosure.

Mohammed Barry is an HIV-positive young Gambian alumni of the African Leadership Academy in South Africa and a student at Quest University Canada. He is currently the youth representative on the AIDS2014 Melbourne Conference Coordinating Committee. He is a proponent of access to HIV treatment by people living with HIV, specifically those in the developing world. He also enjoys reading and playing ultimate Frisbee.

The ostrich is a very interesting creature. When faced with grave danger, the ostrich buries its head in the ground, believing that such an act will help it escape from the grave danger approaching it.

Like the ostrich, humans have for too long tried to “escape” the subject of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) for young people living with HIV (YPLHIV). Yet, young people ages 15-24 constitute almost half of daily HIV infections globally; in the world’s hardest hit nations, these percentages are even higher. There are currently more than 5.4 million YPLHIV ages 15-24; 3.2 million of them reside in sub-Saharan Africa, with a ratio of three young women infected for every young man.

In communities where early age of childbearing is common and HIV prevalence is high, adolescents may place themselves at risk of HIV because of positive or ambivalent attitudes toward pregnancy. These attitudes reduce their motivation to abstain from sex, have sex less often, or use condoms. This study involves the analysis of cross-sectional survey data from KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, to explore whether an association exists between the desire for pregnancy and perceptions of HIV risk among adolescents communities.

This document provides an overview of the World Bank-funded Treatment Acceleration Project (TAP) in Mozambique. It outlines Pathfinder's comprehensive program for youth that integrates counseling, treatment, and care to promote HIV testing and antiretroviral therapy adherence for HIV-positive youth. The program demonstrates the effective role to be played by well-trained peer advocates and their collaboration with quality youth-friendly clinical services.

This research brief summarizes the specific medical, social, psychological, and programmatic needs of youth infected with HIV. Case studies of programs targeting HIV-infected youth in Africa, Europe, and North and South America are included.

This review summarizes the results of a questionnaire that was sent to more than 80 organizations that provide psychosocial support to young people living with HIV. The experiences of the organizations surveyed are synthesized here, with a particular focus on improving adherence to treatment, dealing with disclosure and discrimination, and avoiding high-risk behaviors.

Based on the latest scientific evidence, the World Health Organization (WHO) has released new recommendations on HIV treatment and prevention and infant feeding in the context of HIV. WHO now recommends earlier initiation of antiretroviral therapy for adults and adolescents, the delivery of more patient-friendly antiretroviral drugs (ARVs), and prolonged use of ARVs to reduce the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. For the first time, WHO recommends that HIV-positive mothers or their infants take ARVs while breastfeeding to prevent HIV transmission.

This booklet and poster answer questions raised by young women living with HIV about dating, relationships, sexuality, and parenthood. It offers information to help young people living with HIV have a healthy, happy, and fulfilling life and to make decisions about issues related to their sexual and reproductive health.

This guide explores the rights of young people living with HIV to express and enjoy their sexuality; decide if, when, and how to disclose their HIV status; take care of their sexual health; practice safer sex; choose if, when, how many, and with whom to have children; and access support and services.

The Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance developed this short guide for communities, organizations, and individuals who want to help children who are living with HIV. This advocacy guide is intended for use by teachers, parents, youth leaders, and others. French and Spanish versions can also be downloaded.

The ALHIV eToolkit, developed by USAID, AED, and collaborating organizations, provides resources that cover a broad range of topics pertinent to the treatment, care, and support of ALHIV. Topics covered are training, treatment literacy and adherence, counseling and disclosure, life skills, reproductive health, psychosocial support, human rights and advocacy, peer education, adolescent transitioning, and research, policy, and promising practices.

This booklet summarizes global information about young people and HIV. Regional and demographic information is included, as well as summaries of the challenges faced by young people, and examples of programs which have helped to protect young people.

This report identifies trends across the three countries and issues unique to each setting that should be considered in strategic planning efforts to improve access to and utilization of sexual and reproductive health services by HIV positive women and girls.

This report documents the current circumstances of Romanian children and young people living with HIV, the government’s response to the crisis, international human rights laws and campaigns, and recommendations for the Romanian government, the European Union, and international donors.

The research documented in this report was designed to address the following questions: What barriers face HIV-positive learners in accessing education and staying at school? What challenges are faced by teachers and schools in supporting HIV-positive learners? How can HIV education programs be adapted to suit the sexual and reproductive health needs of HIV-positive learners? How does the education sector need to adapt to meet the needs of HIV-positive learners? The inclusion and care of HIV-positive children in schools is a key priority of the education sector.

This desk-based research reviewed policy on the education of HIV-positive children and examined how their education can be encouraged and supported in primary and secondary school settings.The report was designed as a precursor to a two-country research study in Namibia and Tanzania.

The objective of this study was to explore the special needs of HIV-positive young people in primary and secondary schools in Uganda with a view to identifying possible responses by the education sector to these needs. It involved a survey of 718 young people aged 12–19 years who were perinatally infected with HIV, in-depth interviews with 52 school officials, and 938 student essays on identified HIV/AIDS themes.

The India HIV/AIDS Alliance’s CHAHA program caters to the needs of children and young people ages l0 to 18 who are living with and affected by HIV. This report describes operations research conducted to identify factors that prevent the community from seeking HIV testing of their children, understand issues related to disclosure of HIV status to children and young people, and the social impact of disclosure on parents and their children. Results of the study suggest some practical recommendations for addressing these issues.

This briefing paper was developed by young people living with HIV. It outlines several key issues, considerations, challenges, and recommendations for policy-makers, NGOs, young people, people living with HIV, and other actors in the response to HIV to help us all build a supportive and enabling environment for young people living with HIV to realize their rights.

An abbreviated version of the Equipping Parents and Health Providers to Address the Psychological and Social Challenges of Caring for Children Living with HIV in Africa report, this technical brief documents promising practices in critical services related to the psychological and social wellbeing of perinatally-infected children in Africa.

This report by AIDSTAR-One provides information to better understand the psychological and social challenges faced in Africa by perinatally-infected children (aged 0-12 years), their parents/caregivers, and their health providers. It explores factors that contribute to the ability of children living with HIV to cope and thrive, and identifies the tools and approaches being used to help parents/caregivers and health providers provide psychosocial support to these children.

Chronic food insecurity and achieving strict adherence to antiretroviral therapy are global challenges that, together, have a deleterious effect on children living with HIV. This case study examines how the Breedlove Project integrates HIV programming (treatment and PMTCT) with nutrition programming to address short-term and long-term needs of families and households in Ethiopia.

This report highlights the issues faced by children living with HIV, adolescents engaged in risky behaviors, pregnant women using drugs, and the more than one million children and young people who live or work on the streets of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. To reach and help young people living with HIV or at risk of HIV infection, medical and civil authorities need to establish nonjudgmental, youth-friendly services that address the special needs of marginalized adolescents.

This report summarizes tools that can assist programs to plan and implement integrated services for youth. The tools are summarized in four sections: developing youth-friendly services, training providers, supporting providers with job aids, and promoting services in the community.

This report calls attention to young people ages 10-24 within the populations considered most at risk of HIV infection: men who have sex with men, those who sell sex, and those who inject drugs. Despite the growing attention that has been given to programming for these groups, little explicit focus has been given to the needs of young people in these populations. At the same time, efforts to prevent HIV among young people have tended to focus on the general population. As a result, young people in most-at-risk groups are often not targeted in either type of programming.